Linux-Hardware Digest #427, Volume #14 Fri, 2 Mar 01 13:13:07 EST
Contents:
Re: Need LOTS of disks: Promise ATA RAID?? ("S. Joel Bernstein")
Re: External modem on ThinkPad (John Dixon)
ZIP 250 usb-powered (Alan Needleman)
Re: USB Harddrives? (Frank Miller)
Re: Yet another Newbe Question: defrag? ("Steve Wolfe")
Re: Yet another Newbe Question: defrag? ("Steve Wolfe")
Re: Is the PCI bus going away? ("Steve Wolfe")
Re: Installing RH 7.0 on a new ATA100 based system - help! (Luigi Cavallo)
Errors on booting during partition check ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: Signal / Asynchronous Notifiacation from Device Driver (Sven Geggus)
Re: Yet another Newbe Question: defrag? (Lew Pitcher)
Re: Yet another Newbe Question: defrag? (Lew Pitcher)
Win98, Win2000 & Linux on 1 HD. Any way to share files? ("Garry Heaton")
Re: Win98, Win2000 & Linux on 1 HD. Any way to share files? (Lew Pitcher)
Re: What's a good AGP 1x video card? (Krish)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "S. Joel Bernstein" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: uk.comp.os.linux
Subject: Re: Need LOTS of disks: Promise ATA RAID??
Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2001 15:27:50 -0000
adaptec make a ide raid card
that might be ok for u
Joel
"C. Newport" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> John Rowe wrote:
> >
> > A user needs at least 300GB of disk space and that's after formatting,
> > file system overhead, etc. So I'm reckoning I need at least 6 IBM 60GB
> > disks and I would prefer to have only one per channel, ie no hard
> > disks running as slaves. So I could use a little help!
> >
> > * If I just use three ordinary ATA-100 cards will that cause me any
> > problems? (Performance, boot, etc.)
> >
> > * Will I gain much by using Promise ATA RAID cards? Is there better
> > performance, does it reduce the number of IRQs I'm using? Are
> > there boot problems if I try to make a RAID device my boot device?
> >
>
> Your only realistic option is SCSI, preferably using an external
> RAID array.
>
> Take a look at http://www.transtec.co.uk/ for typical configs.
>
>
>
> --
> Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm
> not sure about the universe. [Albert Einstein].
------------------------------
From: John Dixon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: External modem on ThinkPad
Date: Fri, 02 Mar 2001 07:54:00 -0800
John Dixon wrote:
>
> I have a TP A20m with an internal Lucent winmodem. It works very well
> in data mode with the *very* snazzy linmodem driver. For some reason,
> however, it does not work in fax mode, giving a "no response/command
> from remote" signal. An old USRobotic pc card modem in this machine
> does fax stuff fairly well.
>
> So...I had an Aopen M56-EX/2 external hardware modem unused, so decided
> to hook it up to the TP for home/office use.
>
> For some reason the ThinkPad doesn't recognize it...indeed, it doesn't
> seem to be scanning the serial ports at boot - as does my Desktop with
> the exact same Mandrake 7.2 distro running the 2.4.2 kernel. Is there
> something special that needs to be done to get a ThinkPad to recognize
> its serial port? BTW, this external modem is flawlessly detected by
> Win98 on this machine, and works perfectly.
>
> How can I get Linux to see my serial port/ external modem? I'm sure
> that I'm missing something incredibly obvious.
>
> Thanks for any help!
>
> John Dixon in Vancouver
Ooops. After installing tpctl (wonderful stuff!) I thought there might
be some benefit in taking a peek at the bios settings for the thinkpad
mouse. Turns out that there is a simple bios enable/disable setting for
the serial port! So that's that. Now I wonder what the value could
possibly be of disabling the port in the first place. Free up more
irq's?
Thanks for your help - I learned something from it, even if I had
stupidly
assessed the actual problem.
------------------------------
From: Alan Needleman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: ZIP 250 usb-powered
Date: Fri, 02 Mar 2001 11:12:34 -0500
Hi,
I am running the 2.2.17-14 kernel which has usb support. A ZIP 250 with
a power cord works fine with the included usb drivers. But a ZIP 250
that gets its power from the usb port does not work at all. It doesn't
seem to be getting any power. Would anyone happen to know if this is a
driver problem or do I have a hardware problem (my usb ports not
supplying the needed power)? Thanks. Alan
------------------------------
From: Frank Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: USB Harddrives?
Date: Fri, 02 Mar 2001 16:28:16 GMT
John Hong wrote:
>
> Frank Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> > Another thought; Do you have it working under Linux?
>
> I'll soon find out. Both the hard drive enclosure and SuSE 7.1
> Personal are on there way to me. Should have them both by the end of next
> week. <Fingers-crossed>
Please let me know. Either a post here or email
Thanks
------------------------------
From: "Steve Wolfe" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Yet another Newbe Question: defrag?
Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2001 09:42:11 -0700
> Defragmenting ext2 partitions is not necessary, as ext2 does not become
> significantly fragmented. There are some situations in which fragmentation
> can occur to a noticeable extent, but this is unlikely. I am sure someone
> can comment on this.... :)
Last time I had to power-cycle one of my machines, I recall that one of
the partitions was above 20% fragmentation, and another above 33%. It was
odd, normally I don't see more than about 11-12%.
steve
------------------------------
From: "Steve Wolfe" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Yet another Newbe Question: defrag?
Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2001 09:42:39 -0700
> >I'm used to Norton's utilities and defragmenting. Do such things occur in
> >the Linux world?
>
> <grin> What makes you think that fragmentation is a bad thing?
Useless seek time?
steve
------------------------------
From: "Steve Wolfe" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Is the PCI bus going away?
Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2001 09:58:27 -0700
> Is the PCI bus going away?
>
> I just bought 4 brand new computers
> this year, how long before I'm going
> to have to trash my brand new computers
> and buy new ones?
>
> Why can't Intel just extend PCI and make
> a faster version instead of coming up
> with something else that's totally incompatible?
>
> Can AMD make PCI faster so we all don't have to upgrade?
Right now, things are fine. The only things that can saturate a PCI bus
are a gigabit network card or an Ultra160 SCSI card, provided that it has 4
or more drives all working at once. Very few people have either of those.
: )
And, for those that do use the above hardware (like me), there are
boards with 64-bit, 66 MHz busses, giving four times the effective
bandwidth, making your *useable* bandwidth (not theoretical) go to about 360
megabytes/second. The only time you'd fill that is if you had a
dual-channel U160 RAID card, with a lot of fast drives hooked up to it.
So, why a new bus? Well, think five years in the future. U320 SCSI (320
megabytes/second) will be more available, disk drives will be much faster,
and much cheaper ($/MB). We'll probably be seeing the introduction of
10-gigabit ethernet. That means that we'll need about 10 times the normal
PCI bus, or about 3 times the 64-bit, 66 MHz bus. PCI is here for quite a
while, but eventually, we're going to need something faster.
steve
------------------------------
From: Luigi Cavallo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: linux.redhat.install
Subject: Re: Installing RH 7.0 on a new ATA100 based system - help!
Date: Fri, 02 Mar 2001 18:15:43 +0100
have a look at http://www.geocities.com/ender7007/
There is an howto which helps.
gg
Patrick F Harris wrote:
> AFIK all the ide statement does is help the kernel find the controller.
> You might check the BIOS and disable the other IDE controllers.
> You will need to check /var/log/dmesg to see if the kernel found the
> controller. BTW ide2=0x1e8,0x3ee looks like an isa controller address the
> HPT should be on the PCI bus.
>
> "" wrote:
>
> > Help I am trying to get RH on my new system an Abit KT7A-RAID mother
> > board with an HPT370 UltraDMA/100 controller, the only the HD in the
> > system is installed as the master on IDE2 (2 and 3 are the ATA100
> > interfaces)
> >
> > I have looked at /usr/src/linux/Documentation/ide.txt but I am not
> > sure how to get the redhat installer to see the drive, do I enter:
> >
> > ide2=0x1e8,0x3ee at the boot prompt ( as ide.txt seems to imply) or is
> > there something else I have to do?
> >
> > Right now once I select the class of install (Workstation/server/....)
> > I receive an error message to the effect that there are no 'valid'
> > devices to install on.
> >
> > Any suggestions would be appreciated.
> >
> > Stephen
> > [EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux,comp.os.linux.help,comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Errors on booting during partition check
Date: Fri, 02 Mar 2001 16:45:45 GMT
Hi
I get these errors on booting during the Partition check:
Partition check:
hda:hda: status error: status=0x01 { Error }
hda: status error: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }
hda: drive not ready for command
This is repeated 4 times then continues to boot.
The system works fine, or seems to, I have not noticed any problems although I have
only installed today.
I am using Slackware 4 and I have tried using Debian 2.2 with the same result.
The setup is a 210mb HD, 433M Dell Latitude laptop 4mb RAM - I have tried the 2.5inch
hard disk in another PC with the same result.
Is the hard disk on the way out? Or is this fixable?
Thanks
Rich
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------------------------------
From: Sven Geggus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.linux.development.system,alt.os.linux,comp.os.linux.embedded,linux.redhat.devel,linux.dev.kernel
Subject: Re: Signal / Asynchronous Notifiacation from Device Driver
Date: 2 Mar 2001 08:33:47 +0100
In comp.os.linux.embedded Ajit Sodhi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I was hoping that user can register a signal handler for a certain signal
> (SIGIO maybe) and I raise the signal from my IRQ handler. This is my
> theoritical solution. Please share your opinion on this appraoch. If it
> makes sense, then could someone please provide some info on how to implement
> this.
The classical unix aproach of a userland notify if data has arrived on a
given Device is by means of the select Systemcall (poll method in
Kernelspace). For some strange reason Windows Users tend to use sigio for
this purpose.
Sven
--
.. this message has been created using an outdated OS (UNIX-like) with an
outdated mail- or newsreader (text-only) :-P
/me is giggls@ircnet, http://geggus.net/sven/ on the Web
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Lew Pitcher)
Subject: Re: Yet another Newbe Question: defrag?
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri, 02 Mar 2001 17:45:15 GMT
On Fri, 2 Mar 2001 09:42:39 -0700, "Steve Wolfe" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> >I'm used to Norton's utilities and defragmenting. Do such things occur in
>> >the Linux world?
>>
>> <grin> What makes you think that fragmentation is a bad thing?
>
> Useless seek time?
Seek time is seek time. Since file access is multiplexed from the
point of view of the device (multiple file accesses from multiple,
unrelated processes, with no order imposed on the sequence of blocks
requested), the device driver reorders the requests into something
sensible for the device (i.e elevator algorithm).
In other words, fragmentation is a concern when one (and only one)
process access data from one (and only one) file. When more than one
file is involved, the disk addresses being requested are 'fragmented'
wrt the sequence that the driver has to service them, and thus it
doesn't matter to the device driver whether or not a file was
fragmented.
To illustrate:
I have two programs executing simultaneously, each reading two
different files.
Program 1 reads file 1, block 1
file 1, block 2
file 2, block 1
file 2, block 2
file 2, block 3
file 1, block 3
Program 2 reads file 3, block 1
file 4, block 1
file 3, block 2
file 4, block 2
file 3, block 3
file 4, block 4
The OS scheduler causes the programs to be scheduled and executed such
that the device driver receives requests
file 3, block 1
file 1, block 1
file 4, block 1
file 1, block 2
file 3, block 2
file 2, block 1
file 4, block 2
file 2, block 2
file 3, block 3
file 2, block 3
file 4, block 4
file 1, block 3
As you can see, the accesses are already 'fragmented' and we haven't
even reached the disk yet. I have to stress this, the above situation
is _no different_ from an MSDOS single file access against a
fragmented file.
So, how do we minimize the effect seen above? If you are MSDOS, you
reorder the blocks on disk to match the (presumed) order in which they
will be requested. OTOH, if you are Linux, you reorder the _requests_
into a regular sequence that minimizes disk access. You also buffer
most of the data in memory, and you only write dirty blocks. In other
words, you minimize the effect of 'disk file fragmentation' as part of
the other optimizations you perform on the _access requests_ before
you execute them.
Now, this is not to say that 'disk file fragmentation' is a good
thing. It's just that 'disk file fragmentation' doesn't have the
*impact* here that it would have in MSDOS-based systems. The
performance difference between a 'disk file fragmented' Linux file
system and a 'disk file unfragmented' Linux file system is minimal to
none, where the same performance difference under MSDOS would be huge.
So, you see why I ask "What makes you think that fragmentation is a
bad thing"? Under the right circumstances, fragmentation is a neutral
thing, neither bad nor good.
As to defraging a Linux filesystem (ext2fs), there are tools
available, but (because of the design of the system) these files are
rarely (if ever) needed or used. That's the impact of designing up
front the multi-processing/multi-tasking multi-user capacity of the OS
into it's facilities, rather than tacking
multi-processing/multi-tasking multi-user support on to an inherently
single-processing/single-tasking single-user system.
Lew Pitcher
Information Technology Consultant
Toronto Dominion Bank Financial Group
([EMAIL PROTECTED])
(Opinions expressed are my own, not my employer's.)
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Lew Pitcher)
Subject: Re: Yet another Newbe Question: defrag?
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri, 02 Mar 2001 17:48:13 GMT
On Fri, 2 Mar 2001 09:42:39 -0700, "Steve Wolfe" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> >I'm used to Norton's utilities and defragmenting. Do such things occur in
>> >the Linux world?
>>
>> <grin> What makes you think that fragmentation is a bad thing?
>
> Useless seek time?
Seek time is seek time. Since file access is multiplexed from the
point of view of the device (multiple file accesses from multiple,
unrelated processes, with no order imposed on the sequence of blocks
requested), the device driver reorders the requests into something
sensible for the device (i.e elevator algorithm).
In other words, fragmentation is a concern when one (and only one)
process access data from one (and only one) file. When more than one
file is involved, the disk addresses being requested are 'fragmented'
wrt the sequence that the driver has to service them, and thus it
doesn't matter to the device driver whether or not a file was
fragmented.
To illustrate:
I have two programs executing simultaneously, each reading two
different files.
Program 1 reads file 1, block 1
file 1, block 2
file 2, block 1
file 2, block 2
file 2, block 3
file 1, block 3
Program 2 reads file 3, block 1
file 4, block 1
file 3, block 2
file 4, block 2
file 3, block 3
file 4, block 4
The OS scheduler causes the programs to be scheduled and executed such
that the device driver receives requests
file 3, block 1
file 1, block 1
file 4, block 1
file 1, block 2
file 3, block 2
file 2, block 1
file 4, block 2
file 2, block 2
file 3, block 3
file 2, block 3
file 4, block 4
file 1, block 3
As you can see, the accesses are already 'fragmented' and we haven't
even reached the disk yet. I have to stress this, the above situation
is _no different_ from an MSDOS single file access against a
fragmented file.
So, how do we minimize the effect seen above? If you are MSDOS, you
reorder the blocks on disk to match the (presumed) order in which they
will be requested. OTOH, if you are Linux, you reorder the _requests_
into a regular sequence that minimizes disk access. You also buffer
most of the data in memory, and you only write dirty blocks. In other
words, you minimize the effect of 'disk file fragmentation' as part of
the other optimizations you perform on the _access requests_ before
you execute them.
Now, this is not to say that 'disk file fragmentation' is a good
thing. It's just that 'disk file fragmentation' doesn't have the
*impact* here that it would have in MSDOS-based systems. The
performance difference between a 'disk file fragmented' Linux file
system and a 'disk file unfragmented' Linux file system is minimal to
none, where the same performance difference under MSDOS would be huge.
So, you see why I ask "What makes you think that fragmentation is a
bad thing"? Under the right circumstances, fragmentation is a neutral
thing, neither bad nor good.
As to defraging a Linux filesystem (ext2fs), there are tools
available, but (because of the design of the system) these tools are
rarely (if ever) needed or used. That's the impact of designing up
front the multi-processing/multi-tasking multi-user capacity of the OS
into it's facilities, rather than tacking
multi-processing/multi-tasking multi-user support on to an inherently
single-processing/single-tasking single-user system.
Lew Pitcher
Information Technology Consultant
Toronto Dominion Bank Financial Group
([EMAIL PROTECTED])
(Opinions expressed are my own, not my employer's.)
------------------------------
From: "Garry Heaton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Win98, Win2000 & Linux on 1 HD. Any way to share files?
Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2001 17:54:42 -0000
I have Win98 on a primary DOS partition, Win2000 on an extended DOS
partition and Linux on free space. Unfortunately my modem is only works with
Win98 so I can't download to Linux or Win2000. Is there any way of sharing
files across partitions?
Is SAMBA only for networked computers or can it operate as an interface
between different partitions/OS's?
Regards
Garry
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Lew Pitcher)
Subject: Re: Win98, Win2000 & Linux on 1 HD. Any way to share files?
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri, 02 Mar 2001 18:00:53 GMT
On Fri, 2 Mar 2001 17:54:42 -0000, "Garry Heaton"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>I have Win98 on a primary DOS partition, Win2000 on an extended DOS
>partition and Linux on free space. Unfortunately my modem is only works with
>Win98 so I can't download to Linux or Win2000. Is there any way of sharing
>files across partitions?
Linux can mount FAT16 and FAT32 partitions into it's directory tree
(mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /mnt/msdos)
for read/write access
Windows2000 NTFS support is available
(mount -t ntfs /dev/hda2 /mnt/win2000)
for readonly access, and the newer kernels support
read/write access in a beta-level driver.
>Is SAMBA only for networked computers or can it operate as an interface
>between different partitions/OS's?
Networked computers. The client application sees a "Microsoft
Networks" file that's really a Linux file at the server. If Samba is
to access a local file on an MSpartition, it has to use the Linux
kernel filesystem support.
Lew Pitcher
Information Technology Consultant
Toronto Dominion Bank Financial Group
([EMAIL PROTECTED])
(Opinions expressed are my own, not my employer's.)
------------------------------
From: Krish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: What's a good AGP 1x video card?
Date: Sat, 03 Mar 2001 01:57:13 +0800
I have had excellent results with Creative Riva TNT2 (nVidia Chipset)
under Linux (RH 6.2)... I would recommend them wholeheartedly...
PAUL NIELSEN wrote:
>
> >
>
> I've had good luck with m`Mirage cards as they provide Linux support. see
> http://www.mirage-mmc.com
> I
> Paul
------------------------------
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